Independent journalism on UK fracking, onshore oil and gas and the reactions to it

Protest update: 10-16 April 2017

In this update of protests about fracking and the onshore oil and gas industry:

Final action of Reclaim the Power’s Break the Chain protest at fracking supply companies

24-hour lorry protest at Preston New Road

Lock-on at Maxx Piling Stockholders in Horwich, Bolton

Blockade at Eddie Stobart depot near Rugby

This post will be updated throughout the week with any new activities and events.

10 April 2017

Bell Pottinger, central London

Bell Pottinger, 10 April 2017. Photo: Reclaim the Power

About 40 activists from the anti-fracking group, Reclaim the Power, staged what they called an “animal-themed intervention” at the central London offices of the PR company, Bell Pottinger.

Dressed as animals, including zebras, monkeys and squid, the activists threw leaves and animal manure and left messages reading “Break the Chain” and “We said No”.

The action was part of Reclaim the Power’s Break the Chain 14-day protest targeting the shale gas supply chain.

The group said it had picked Bell Pottinger because it had represented Cuadrilla and now worked for Centrica, a partner in shale gas licences.

Kim Bishop, of the group, said:

“This is the year that the fight against fracking intensifies. With the government not listening to the overwhelming opposition to fracking, people are having to stop it themselves. Now is the time to escalate action and call on suppliers to break their links with this industry nobody wants.

“As the frackers try to push forward with their plans we’re fighting back, supporting the communities who have held off the industry for six years. The movement to stop fracking is bigger and bolder than ever before and is growing. This fortnight of action is a call out to everyone opposed to fracking to join in resistance.”

Photos: Reclaim the Power

11-12 April 2017

Preston New Road, Little Plumpton, Lancashire

A 42-year-old man climbed on top of a lorry delivering stone to Cuadrilla’s shale gas site at about 3pm. The man was arrested about 24 hours later after police officers climbed onto the lorry and it was driven onto the site.

“During March, one of our tankers was sub-contracted to a company that made three deliveries to Cuadrilla. These deliveries have now ceased. We have verbally agreed with protesters that we have no plans to deliver into this site or other proposed locations.

“Therefore we are disappointed to see further protests on an Eddie Stobart site today.”

Fascinating, dont you see we are all animals? You, me, them, all of us? No matter what side we take, we are all the same, we are not machines, we don’t run on oil or gas, those are just the present way we live our lives, and not for much longer by all accounts, us animals all run on clean unpolluted air and clean unpolluted water, we all need to eat unpolluted food and we all live on this one planet, we dont have a spare in case we screw this one up, if we mess up this one we don’t have anywhere else to go..
.
Calling people animals as if that is an insult just leads to ubermenchen and untermenchen again, and that precipitous descent down a slope we should never contemplate again, no matter what the cause.

For accuracy by the way, the word ‘animal’ rather than the anti social misuse of the word used as an insult means something quite wonderful.

“Middle English: the noun from Latin animal, based on Latin animalis ‘having breath’ from anima ‘breath’; the adjective via Old French from Latin animalis. Latin Anima, or Animus, have overlapping meanings, both with the basic meaning soul or spirit. Also the feminine form, anima, has the root meaning breath, air, life force, while the masculine form, animus, has the root meaning mind or intellect.”

I find that the mistake the o&g industry make every time is that it forgets that if push comes to shove, we can do without oil or gas, not in our present state perhaps, but do you really think this present hell for leather insanity is worth preserving? We are going to have to change sometime, it might as well be now.

What we cannot do without is clean air, clean water, clean land to grow crops on, communities to live and support each other, families and a future for our children and us all, you included.

We are all ready finding alternatives to extracting oil and gas from beneath our feet, many have existed for over 100 years and are so simple.
Those are the alternative renewables you don’t like being mentioned, i wonder why?
We could have many them up and running in five years or so if we spent less on bombing hospitals and airfields, and partitioning up the land and destroying communities, maybe 20 years to full use everywhere, that is where our hard earned futures should be, and they do not pollute the land the water and the air and will give us true energy security, not just for now, but for the foreseeable future.

The real question is, are we capable of changing and what do we have to do to bring this world back to some sort of sanity again. Suggestions please.

As you know i don’t support this activity, but i do find it amusing, however i also don’t believe any of the promises of the o&g industry that it is clean and non polluting, and nor does most of the rest of the country, and i don’t believe we can take any further risks to prove the point one way or the other, because the risk in itself is far too great that it will all go belly up on us and we will be left with a polluted uninhabitable dying ecology. That is the bottom line.

Its the old conundrum, its not whether we can do it, its whether we should do it, and what are the risks? The real eye opener is ‘Que Bono?’, ‘who benefits?’ We all know the answer to that one. The old Cherokee saying is, ‘If its not good for everyone, its not good.’

Derivative again? If its bad for most of us, its still bad for everyone. You might as well say that its bad for a criminal to be caught, when in fact it was the original action which was bad, not the result of that bad? Never mind, just another example of all our animal behaviour?
Change is going to happen because it must or we will profit ourselves out of a planet to live on. Fossil fuels are not the future, we live on a planet that provides free electromagnetic energy for as long as there is a sun, ie forever. Sucking the last dregs of economically doubtful fossil fuel out of the ground at vast expense and endangering the very country we live in smacks of desperation of the dying gasps of the fossil fuel industry, not a courageous leap to base our future on energy available for practically nothing for everyone.
This stultified protectionism of the fossil fuel industry will be looked upon as a prolonged aberration to whoever or whatever follows us when the dust clears.
Better we change now, fossil fuelled government protected oligarchies no longer serve us, they seek to become our master, and that will never happen and will never be allowed to happen.
Many species evolved into dead end specialisation, when the ecology changed or was damaged by mono culture exploitation, the species that were not able to change perished, those better able to adapt, both physically and mentally thrived and flourished. Its time to change, the old fossil fuelled oligarchies no longer serve us or the future. Stultification is not the answer, its not even the question, the question and the answer is do we have the courage to use our intelligence to change, and to ask what is stopping intelligent change from happening and more to the point who is benefitting from fossilising the need to change?

An exercise in anti PR for the antis. The more silly stunts like this, the better for the exploration companies.

I suspect we will now be back to the rhetoric(!) of persecution for a while. Meanwhile the worlds economy will continue to be based around oil, and the fact that the vast bulk of oil used in the UK is not used for generation of electricity will be totally ignored-because it is an uncomfortable fact. And the existing data regarding energy security for the UK will also be hidden away because it makes uncomfortable reading.